%0 Journal Article
%T Preschool ChildrenĄŻs Behavioral Tendency toward Social Indirect Reciprocity
%A Mayuko Kato-Shimizu
%A Kenji Onishi
%A Tadahiro Kanazawa
%A Toshihiko Hinobayashi
%J PLOS ONE
%D 2013
%I Public Library of Science (PLoS)
%R 10.1371/journal.pone.0070915
%X Social indirect reciprocity seems to be crucial in enabling large-scale cooperative networks among genetically unrelated individuals in humans. However, there are relatively few studies on social indirect reciprocity in children compared to adults. Investigating whether young children have a behavioral tendency toward social indirect reciprocity will help us understand how and when the fundamental ability to form cooperative relationships among adults is acquired. Using naturalistic observation at a nursery school, this study examined whether 5- to 6-year-olds show a behavioral tendency to engage in social indirect reciprocity in response to their peersĄŻ prosocial behavior toward a third party. The results revealed that bystander children tended to display prosocial behavior toward their peers more frequently after observing these peersĄŻ prosocial behavior toward third-party peers, compared with control situations; this suggests that 5- to 6-year-olds may have an essential behavioral tendency to establish social indirect reciprocity when interacting with peers in their daily lives. In addition, bystanders tended to display affiliative behavior after observing focal childrenĄŻs prosocial behavior. In other words, observing peersĄŻ prosocial behavior toward third-party peers evoked bystandersĄŻ positive emotions toward the helpers. Considering both the present results and previous findings, we speculate that in preschoolers, such positive emotions might mediate the increase in the bystanderĄŻs prosocial behavior toward the helper. In addition, an intuitional emotional process plays an important role in the preschoolerĄŻs behavioral tendency toward social indirect reciprocity in natural interactions with peers.
%U http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0070915